Alfonso and Alale Calling for Harambee!

Dear Friends of Daylight ,

Greetings from Daylight, Pokot, Kenya! The Children and Staff at Daylight are doing great. My family and I too are doing terrific by God’s grace and providence. Indeed, we all sing in joy and gratitude an “Amazing grace”! – This far the lord has been faithful in watching over us…

Likewise I hope you are doing good, and that the good lord has seeing you through the year, 2011.

Alsonso Keliman at his homestead

Anyway, I write to convey greetings and message from your long time friend from Alale, Pokot, Kenya - Alfonso Keliman whose picture is shown alongside.

Some of you ( ie Rachel Finsaas, Nathan Roberts, Leah Welch, Samantha Webster, David Maus, Megan Green, Michael McCranie and Lauren Loderstrom) have met him and hang out/visited with him at Alale/Kapenguria. Those of you who will be visiting Daylight sometime soon or in the future will certainly not miss you have a day with Alfonso. He is one fun guy to be around with. He is always full of life... smiling and so inviting. 

Rachel Finsaas, U of M grad Student, trying a hand at milking a camel

Alfonso is a community leader. In Alale village, Alfonso is more than willing to get Daylight friends around, and often times he would slaughter a goat or let friends try out milking one or two of his camels. As a leader he is the one who speaks on behalf of the community. When Daylight was receiving the first batch of Students, Alfonso was the one who offered a big goat for the children. And he always stayed close with the Daylight Kids ministry. He has so much love children and he also  believes life at the villages can improve for the better in the years ahead. 

One of the Harambee invitation card send out

Currently, he is involved in some big initiative at the village, an endeavor that might revolutionize how the villagers go about their daily chores! And he has asked me to share with you about that venture  – a fund raising event at his home village this Saturday 19^th, November 2011 (See the  above invitation card send out).

Locally, this exercise is popularly known as an HARAMBEE (i.e. pulling together). It is a Kenyan way of getting things done by and through a network or cloud of friends and family.  In this event the aim is to aid in helping Alfonso's village get a tractor for plowing land for the purposes of growing crops/cereals. As you may be aware, the people in Alale are turning to crop growing since animal keeping has continued to become unsustainable due to cattle rustling and increasingly dwindling numbers of the animals over the years.

All along, the locals till the land manually using hoes (see the attached picture 2), and that limits the pace and amount of land that can be tilled. Apparently, a tractor will go a long way in so far as helping locals who have resorted to farming (in their humble ways aimed at attaining subsistence farming and food production).

As you can see from the HARAMBEE card, the Chief Guest of Honor who will lead and grace the event will be a Government of Kenya Minister, Hon Julius Murgor who is from the Environment and Mineral resources department - and will be joined by Members of parliament from Uganda.There will  also be more public officers, religious and civic leaders among others who will be in attendance to lend their hands in this endeavor. The villagers will come in their numbers to pitch in toward the Harambee - some bring a cow, goat, chicken and the like. As they say here " Haba na haba hujaza kibaba" ( Little by little fills up the measure).  I am also going to be there in person. Hopefully, this weekends Harambee will be a big success to put a tractor in that village of Alale. 

However, Rachel Finsaas has asked me to make sure I address the following questions which indeed  are questions that you might be wondering about:

• How much does the tractor cost in total?  A good (new) tractor like the one show alongside goes out here in Kenya for about $35,000 ( Kenya Shillings 3.5 million). Prices of used ones will be less. Depending on how much this weekends Harambee is able to collect, then the choice of the tractor will be determined accordingly. 

• Does the cost include the plow attachment for the tractor? The tractor targeted is one with a plow - and the one to be acquire for the village must come with a good plow mounted on it. 

• Who in the community will run the tractor (do they already know how to use it, or will they be trained)?   There are no people who can operate the tractor in the village. However, the community will get someone who knows how to run a tractor from Kapenguria. In addition, the community intends to get a young or two to be working alongside so that they can learn on the job. 

• Who in the community is able to fix the tractor when it breaks. The person from Kapenguria that the community will get over to operate the equipment will be able to fix it. 

Finally, consider yourself invited into this effort. You may make some contributions and  will go a long way.And I know Alfonso and his village will appreciate it a lot. Whatever, the lord leads you to give can get here via the Daylight Center, US ( http://www.daylightcenterpokot.org/support-daylight.html ) - you can make an online donation that through that secure link.All donations will be tax-deductible. 

Most importantly, Daylight Center is glad to partner with the local community in getting things done together. Having said that, I am going  to let Alfonso and the villagers know that Daylight and the friends of Daylight are with them in this together. 

Again, thanks and God’s blessings.

RSVP

Nathan Robert - daylightcenter@gmail.com 

Michael Kimpur - mkimpur@yahoo.com